Halloween themed books/books set at Halloween

It is October.  Autumn.  Halloween is around the corner.  The leaves are changing.  The weather is brisk.  What other time of year do you get to say that?  It’s time for pumpkins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin spiced latte’s, and don’t forget soup.

Halloween is a favorite holiday.  I love seeing little ghouls and superheroes come to my door.  Seeing a child pick out a pumpkin, carve it, and spoon out it’s seedy guts is wonderful .  Send me Elmo babies and dogs dressed as Freddie Kruger.  I think we can all agree trick or treating, jack-o-lanterns, and corn mazes are fabulous with or without crazy men chasing you with chainsaws.  Haunted houses pop up in vacant lots.  The best I’ve heard about this year requires a waiver.  It’s at an old hospital and they can touch you.  I’m a bit of a pansy when it come to visuals, and I would likely hit someone, so I will be skipping it.  But doesn’t it sound amazing?  It is quite literally the best people watching holiday.

It is time to ramp up.   I am looking for anything set at Halloween – books, movies, TV episodes.  Halloween does not have to be the theme, but it does have to be part of the story.  I don’t require it to be scary, however, good horror is appreciated.  Throw in zombies, witches, and paranormal hijinks.  It will make it better.  Mysteries and thrillers set at Halloween are wanted.  Murder spices things up.  Don’t forget the humor or camp, however.

It’s time to watch the leaves fall, wrap yourself in a toasty sweater, drink a cup of apple cider and get ready for a dark and stormy night.  To do that, you need to curl up with a book, or a movie that’s just as dark as what is brewing outside.  This month I have collected a group of new books that are season appropriate.  I will share them with you through the month.The only rules I have – part of the book takes place at Halloween.  Please share your favorites.  I will share with you what I find this year through the month, but let’s kick off by giving you a list of what I’ve found in the past.

Books Set at Halloween

*Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury

A tale of two friends making the turn to teenagers on Halloween night.  It has a wicked travelling carnival including witches.  This is a classic that captures Fall.  It’s scary.  Disney made a movie of this in 1983.  The film gave me nightmares.  I still remember that damn carousel.

* The Gates – John Connolly

This is a clever book about a young boy who goes trick or treating with his dachshund Boswell three days early.  He’s trying to maximize.  He stumbles upon a plot to open the gates of Hell by a group of bored adults at 666 Crowley Rd.  ‘The Gates’  is funny and includes the Hadron Collider, Satan, and the Great Maleficense.  This isn’t scary but a worthy read.

*Dance Upon the Air – Nora Roberts

This is the start of a Nora Roberts Trilogy.  At it’s heart it is both a romance as well as self-exploration.  A woman comes out of a relationship so abusive she had to fake her own death.  There are supernatural elements.  There are witches on an island created by magic.  Halloween plays a part at the climax of this story.

*Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness

Harkness’s story includes witches, vampires, and daemons.  Diana Bishop is a witch in denial.  She became a historian in an effort to maintain control and rationale in her life.  Her childhood home is haunted by her ancestors. When she calls up an ancient alchemical manuscript from the Bodleian library her world falls apart.  This is partially a romance.  Halloween plays a part at the end of the book and the cliffhanger.

* The Thickety – J.A. White

 A story about a young girl with powers.  This is a middle school novel where a young girl grows up in a colonial village without her mother because she was convicted of witchcraft.  Her family has been shunned and there is mystery about an evil in the local wood called the Thickety.  It grows bigger despite the towns people clearing the trees every day.  Colonial Halloween traditions of bobbing for apples etc. take place.

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I read horror last year that was great ( favorites:  The Girl With All the Gifts, Feed, World War Z, Horrorstor, etc.) and I loved them, but they were not set at Halloween or Halloween themed.  Please let me know if you have suggestions.  I do have a Zombie trend but I welcome others.

The Thickety: A Path Begins – J. A. White

A young girl loses her mother at the age of six.  Her mother is accused of witchcraft and killed in front of her in the small colonial village of Denoran.  The village is on an Island surrounded by dark forest known as the Thickety.  It’s black life continues to encroach on the town despite clearers cutting it back every day.  It reminded me of ‘The Heart of Darkness.’  No one can enter and not be changed if they survive at all.

HALLOWEEN APPROVED

This was another book I found in search for Halloween novels, and it is Halloween Approved!  Halloween is referred to as The Shadow Festival.  Activities include  costumes and traveling from house to house for treats.  There is even a corn maze.  Sordyr is the dark creature that controls the Thickety and the Shadow Festival is dedicated to cautionary tales of Sordyr and is the night he is at his strongest.

This is an intelligent middle school/young adult book that adults can enjoy too.  It centers around Kara who is twelve years old.  She has taken on the role of caring for her family in the absence of her mother.  Her brother is sickly and her father has never gotten over the loss of his wife.  He is barely functional.  Her family is looked down upon if not openly despised by the villagers because their mother was a convicted witch.  The village is a tightly knit religious community and what the “Fender,” similar to a governor, says is law.  The Fender believes Kara is a witch and has believed it since she was six.  He has no proof, however.  If this was not enough adversity for a young girl Kara has a nemesis in the body of a beautiful disabled girl named Grace.  The community sees Grace as a fair-haired angel.  She only shows her dark, cruel, and manipulative side to Kara and her brother Taff.

‘The Thickety’ is filled with magic.  It explores a few themes: what is not understood is seen as dangerous, and the price of power.  Kara is tempted by Sordyr’s creatures into the woods and finds a grimoire.  As she explores its power it brings out darkness, jealousy, vengeance and anger in her.  Sordyr is very similar to the concept of the devil in colonial stories of witches.  He provides temptation and power to young women in exchange for their mortal soul.   The focus of his attentions are on the disenfranchised and outcasts.  I believe that J.A. White did proper research into witch hunts like the Salem witch trials and utilized it intelligently to create this fictional tale.  It is age appropriate for middle grade children but doesn’t shy away from the unfortunate truths of historical  witch hunts.  I am impressed with this new series.   It is a good Halloween read.  It would be frightening for young children but is appropriately suspenseful for older children and young adults.  It is a great introduction to early Halloween traditions in America and colonial belief in witches for young adults.  I recently read The Penguin Book of Witches which is a book of collected true accounts of witch trials.  I was pleasantly surprised that J.A. White’s story kept so close to historically accurate portrayals of the early American beliefs in witches.

There is a wonderful audible version of this book narrated by Susan Duerden.  She has narrated several other books I enjoyed like ‘The Rook.’  She is one of my favorite narrators.  I recommend this in both book and audible format for people with children from the ages of 11-18 and people who enjoy young adult and middle grade books.